What a week! We finally got snow! The boys were so excited! TJ wanted to run out and make a snowman. I hated to have to disappoint him and let him know there wasn't quite enough snow. Plus, the temperature went up and despite having all the snow (at least a few inches), it was quickly turning to slush due to the rain. I will still try to read Dream Snow by Eric Carle and The Snowman by Raymond Briggs, despite being snow-less.
Well, I finally got around to reading the spider fact books to TJ. I read Spiders by Gail Gibbons. Sometimes you wonder how much they really retain. Well, I've got an inkling. I read Spiders to TJ Sunday night before Daddy got home. TJ asked me to read it again on Monday but I was in the middle of something so I told him to "read" it on his own first. LJ was crying for a "tory!" when he saw TJ holding books, so I told him TJ could read to him. And TJ was! Okay, not really, but he was relaying facts that I had read to him the night before. He remembered different spider names and web names, and was telling LJ all about it. Including imitating what I was doing when I was reading to him. There were facts about different spiders and how they catch their prey. So I would grab TJ to show him how the spiders grabbed the insects. TJ got a kick out of it. And TJ was doing the same thing to LJ. Too cute!
We did arts and crafts yesterday. I really wanted to do thumbprint art with the boys but for the life of me, I could not find the giant inkpad I bought. I could have sworn that I bought one from Lakeshore, but it is nowhere to be found. So I had to improvise with washable markers. Daddy loved that. lol LJ and I worked on his thank you cards. (finally!) Then they decorated hearts cutouts with thumbprints. I am really proud of TJ. He isn't afraid to get dirty like he used to. I also showed him how you can use the thumbprints as a springboard and turn them into other things like butterflies or caterpillars or whatever captures your imagination. I drew some for him. Then when he wanted to make some more before dinner time, I told him to give it a shot and try to draw it on his own. TJ was a bit whiny at first and kept asking me to do it for him. I was being stern and said he had to try it and that he wasn't even trying. So eventually TJ did and turned out really cute! He was so proud of himself! I told him he could do it. All TJ has to do is believe in himself.
I also started reading Do All Spiders Spin Webs?, a questions and answer book but TJ was very distracted and jumbling his facts. It might have been too overwhelming for him. I think the Spiders book was more his style and pace.
We re-read Water Cycle tonight and did an experiment representing the water cycle from the Awesome Ocean Science book. It was very simple and only required a short, easy-to-find list of items: a glass jar, plastic bag, rubber band, hot water and ice cubes. I took a glass jar and filled it a third of the way with hot tap water. Then I put the plastic sandwich bag into the jar, leaving about maybe 3/4 inch to an inch of space above the water. I brought the excess of the plastic bag over the rim of the jar and held the plastic bag in place with a rubber band. Then I filled the bag with ice cubes to the rim of the jar. The jar turns cloudy as the hot water evaporates, rises and then condenses near the cold ice. We waited about 30 minutes to see droplets of water hanging from the plastic bag. We shook the jar to cause the droplets to fall, imitating rain. TJ got a kick out of this. And this was so easy to do. I may use boiling water the next time I try this experiment. I do not think the tap water was hot enough. Either that or I need to run the hot water some more.
Also from the Awesome Ocean Science book, we did an impromptu lesson on different kinds of fish. These were the fish that I had to look up/google on the computer for TJ and LJ - LJ looooves fish:
1 barber fish - you won't catch this fish shying away from sharks; in fact, grooming sharks is its favorite pasttime.
2 wolf eel - This fierce-looking fish has sharp teeth, but it's very friendly and can easily be lured out of its rocky den to eat food (like sea urchins) out of a diver's hand.
3 mudskippers (TJ loved this one and I think they're pretty cool, too!) - During low tide, these fish use their armlike appendages to hop around shores where mangrove trees grow.
4 stonefish - It looks harmless as a weed-covered rock, but this fish uses its spine to stick its enemy with deadly venom.
5 sarcastic fringeheads (gotta love the name of this fish!) - These fish may look like they're grinning, but they have a reputation for being pretty ill-tempered. When two of them duke it out for territory, the one with the biggest mouth wins.
6 lionfish - This resident of the Indian and Pacific oceans has a "mane" made of hollow, poisonous spines.
7 stargazer - This unusual-looking creature points its eye directly upward and waits for prey to swim overhead.
8 porcupine fish - When frightened, this spine-covered fish blows up like a beach ball to make itself hard for predators to swallow.
9 parrot fish - This fish has a beaklike mouth equipped for crunching and munching coral.
10 hatchet fish - These silvery deep-sea fish have blade-shaped bodies.
11 four-eyed butterfly fish - A pair of big black spots near this fish's tail can fool a predator into thinking the fish is coming when it's really going.
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